Tennessee Conference UMC Commission on Archives and History

The location where we keep all our archival and other historical materials is officially called the Conference Depository. I have never cared for that name, and so I have begun to refer to it, unofficially, as the Historical Library and Archives. The reason for this is that a large part of our collections are monographs or other published materials. Even many of our records are not unique, archival records but published versions of various conferences and events. As a professional archivist and a researcher, I feel the knowledge that there is a substantial part of the collection that is published material and a substantial part that are official records or manuscript collections should be easily and quickly conveyed to the potential researcher in the name. This issue has not been addressed by the Commission on Archives and History because I have not brought it up, but I will sometime in the future.

When it comes right down to it, we have a collection of artifacts, art and objects. We really should be considered a heritage or history center to encompass all these physical pieces of our history. But that will wait.